The present invention relates to a jacketed projectile having both hard and soft core portions.
The present invention relates to a projectile according to the precharacterizing clause of claim 1.
Hard-core small-calibre ammunition is used in particular by marksmen and is intended for the precise penetration of armoured targets. Armoured targets within the meaning of the subject matter of the invention are protective vests (for people), armoured glass, steel plates and light-metal armouring.
A wide variety of such ammunition is known. It can be divided up into ammunition with steel cores, ammunition with hard cores made of dense sintered material and ammunition with a medium added to the hard core such as lead, aluminium and/or air. A common feature of this ammunition is a steel jacket, generally designed as a full jacket, a plated steel jacket or tombac jacket, which receives the cores and media and encloses them at least in a fluid-tight manner.
A jacketed, projectile with a lead core in the shape of a truncated cone at the tail and with a jacket encompassing the lead core and made of steel or a tombac alloy is presented in EP-A1-0 499 832. To reduce deposits in the barrel of portable firearms, the jacket is additionally plated with a thin layer of tin.
GB-A-592 538 discloses a small-calibre projectile in which the hard core is mounted unsupported in the projectile jacket between the front region of the latter and a body made of light metal, at the tail. As a result, the desired weight distribution is obtained, manufacturing tolerances compensated for, and in addition the friction in the gun barrel reduced.
A further jacketed projectile is disclosed by GB-A-601 686 which has a special design of a hard and soft core favourable in terms of fabrication. The hard core at the front has, for this purpose, in part, smaller diameters than the interior of the jacketed projectile; the hard core is likewise supported by a soft body made of light metal, with an axial overlength, which body has, at the front, a recess which serves for centring the hard core and merges into a further, spherical-cap-shaped hollow space. This gives rise to gaps and recesses between the cores and the jacket, which allows material displacements and results in compressibility when the projectile is being pressed and closed, thereby allowing compensation for fabrication tolerances.
Owing to their geometry and internal and external ballistics, the known projectiles have inadequate first-hit probability and, with armoured targets, show inadequate penetration capability.
WO 89/03015 describes a projectile for a large-calibre firearm, in particular for a cannon, the projectile having a form-fitting connection between the projectile jacket and its core in order to increase the penetration capacity and prevent stripping of the projectile jacket. In addition, special core shapes and configurations of the tail, as well as constrictions in the middle part and tail part of the projectile, are shown. A hollow space, provided in a variant, between an acute-angled front region of the core and the interior of the jacket is filled with lubricating grease, plastic or powder to retain the shape of the head in the target; this additionally reduces the resulting friction during assembly.
The proposed measures and means are applicable only in a very limited manner to small-calibre ammunition and increase the cost of this considerably
EP-A2-0 106 411 discloses small-calibre ammunition and manufacturing processes therefor. The appropriately optimized and manufactured projectiles serve mainly as infantry combat ammunition and already have good aerodynamic properties. However, this ammunition does not possess the high terminal ballistic energy which is required by marksmen and is necessary for the penetration of armouring.